Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1887-07-28
euRNs. CHILDHOOD.
Thrilling Incident of the Early Days OF
the Famous Poets Life.

remembered in the west of Scotland
as the stormiest of the whole year, none
save the boldest fishermen-and very
few few of them-dared to venture out
to sea in the teeth of the roaring gales
which had ragged increasingly ever since
Christmas Eve, while the hardest peas
ants of the hills. though familiar from
their childhood with every ridge and
hollow for miles round, often had hard
work to find their way from place to
place through the binding SHOWS and
furious winds of that stormy season.
The last day of the month had come,
and still the wild weather continued
undated. But neither the howl of the
rushing blast nor the crash of the fall
ing trees along the frozen river dis
turbed the slumbers of a little boy,
hardly week old, who lay sleeping
in the rude clay hoSel which his fathers
spade had hastily thrown up not many
months before.
A sturdy little fellow he was. and his
strong arms and limbs, fully revealed
by the kicking off of the tartan shawl
that had been spread over him, might
have served any painter rs a model for
an infant Hercules, Well might his
mother look foudly and proudly at him
as she sat near the wicker cradle, hard
at work upon a half-fnished pair of
blue stockings, such as the Scottish
peasantry of that time used to wear.
But furious gust of wind, which
flung the snow in huge drifts against
the rafting easement, gave another
turn to her thoughts, which were, in
truth, any thing but pleasant ones.
Her husband was out in the full fury of
this storm. For there was no staying
at home for him; however wild the
weather might be, to work he must go.
And the worst of it was that no matter
how hard he might work, or how hard
she might work to help him, they
seemed only to be getting poorer and
poorer. Every thing appeared to go
wrong with them somehow, and if this
winter were to prove as hard as the last
they would be sOrely straitened to
find food for themselves and their
child.
Another and fiercer blast made the
door and window rattle as if it would
drive them in. calling up to the lonely
woman's troubled mind visions of the
deep SHOWS and treacherous ice and
steep slippery paths and falling rocks
which had widowed many wife during
that terrible month. Was the sorrow
which had already fallen upon so many
now about to strike her likewise?
Fiercer and fiercer grew the fury OF
the storm, making the frail clay walls
literally rock with every gust; but the
lonely watcher was far too much occu-
pied with the thought of her husbands
danger to heed her own.
"Oh, only aOish he were hame!'
she muttered, clasping her hands con-
vulsively.
Crash! The weakened end of the
eastern wall gave way before ire
mendous blast, and fell inward with a
fearful noise, shaking the whole house
from top to bottom, and filling it with
binding cloud of dust. The mother
sprang to her feet and with one bound
she was beside the cradle, bending over
it as if to shield the infant with her
lettering door was dashed open, and
her husband came bursting into the
room, followed by two of his neigh
bors.
"Haste We, lassie; there's nae time to
lose," he shouted, snatching up his
wife's light figure, like an infant, in his
strong aims, while one of his comrades
caught the baby out of its cradle.
There aOaS no time to lose. indeed.
Scarcely had the last of the three men
sprang through the doorway when the
whole roof came crashing in, and the
howell fell to pieces like house of cards.
Pressing closely together. the brave
men fought their way foot by foot, and
bore the rescued mother and child
safely to the house of a farmer who
lived little higher up the stream.
When they entered it the farmers old
father (who was fast approaching his
SEVENTEEN year, although his eye was
still as bright and his cheek as ruddy
as that of many younger MANI rose
from his seat by the fireside to greet
his unexpected guests. who told him in
a few hurried words what had hap
pened.
1.-The Lord bless We, my bonnie
bairnr' said the patriarch, laying his
hand tenderly upon the child's head.
I'm thinkin' He will haze some great
work for We to do yet, since He has
stretched forth His hand to save yer
wee life frae the storm"
The old man lived to see his prophe-
cy fulfilled more than twenty years
later, when that rescued baby made all
Scotland ring with the name, of Robert
Burns.-DaUid Ker, in HGrper's Young
People.